General Conference with Preschoolers: Easter Edition

Happy General Conference Weekend!

Like most of you, I love this special weekend for my family to be together at home feasting on the words of our church leaders and hearing from our prophet.

This particular conference is extra sweet because it’s combined with Easter Sunday.

I have some tips to help make this weekend especially memorable and enjoyable for you and your little bunnies.

Conference Tip #1: Set up a reverence tent. I love reading Mosiah 2:6 to my kids on conference morning. “And they pitched their tents round about the temple, every man having his tent with the door thereof towards the temple, that thereby they might remain in their tents and hear the words which King Benjamin should speak unto them.” I tell the kids we get to be like King Benjamin’s people from the Book of Mormon and gather in a tent to hear our prophet and leaders speak to us. Since I have 6 little ones, we set up our 2 easy to assemble teepees to make room for everyone. Another alternative is to have fun building a fort together as a homemade tent. The kids can set up cozy blankets and stuffed friends in the teepees to sit with as they enjoy listening to conference.

Conference Tip #2: Set out a quiet activity for each session of conference. By having something special that only appears on conference weekend, my kids are likely to play with it longer and look forward to it next conference. I have 4 activities that come out only during conference weekends, 1 for each session to keep the magic of conference weekend going.

Quiet Activity for Saturday Session 1: White Play Dough. I make a large batch of white playdough for my kids to quietly use to build temples. I also set out flat, clear vase fillers to use as decorations.

White Play Dough Recipe:

2 cups cornstarch

1 cup salt

2 T oil

2 T cream of tartar

2 cups water

Optional: Flour for kneading

Mix all of the ingredients in a pan over medium heat, stirring until it comes together to form a ball. When a ball has formed, remove it from the heat and put it on a cutting board to cool. Knead until soft. I liked the texture of my play dough best after kneading it in a handful of white flour.

Quiet Activity for Saturday Session 2: Pipe Cleaners. I set out a pile of colorful pipe cleaners for the kids to shape into whatever they would like as long as they are creating quietly. The kids can shape the pipe cleaners to make glasses, flowers, headbands, cubes, etc. The possibilities are endless!

Quiet Activity for Sunday Session 1: Easter Sensory Box. I use an underbed clear storage box to fill with green and white crinkle cut paper, plastic eggs, kid tweezers, pom poms, and buttons. My toddler, preschoolers, and elementary age kids all enjoy scooping, pouring, transferring, and grasping the materials as they listen to conference. Tip: Don’t overfill your box and make a rule that all the contents need to stay in the box so you don’t have a mess to clean up afterward.

Quiet Activity for Sunday Session 2: Lacing Cards. I keep a box with our conference activities in my master bedroom closet and only open it up each conference weekend. The kids all love to see the lacing cards come out and sit quietly working on them.

Conference Tip #3: Apostle Egg Hunt. Each conference I like to set out pictures of the prophet and apostles around the room for my children to find as the speaker comes to the pulpit. This spring is a perfect opportunity to turn it into an extra special egg hunt. Tape a small picture of each member of the first presidency and the quorum of the 12 apostles on a plastic Easter egg for a total of 15 eggs. When the prophet or apostle speaks, the kids can open the egg with the matching picture. Special Note: This particular April 2018 conference, we only have 10 apostles that are known before the start of conference so 13 total eggs will be enough.

I chose to make a set of eggs for each of my kids to open during conference. If I had one or two or even three young children at home I would keep it more simple and hide one set of eggs around our family room; However, since I have a larger tribe, an actual hunt would likely be a distraction and cause arguing over sharing just one egg of snacks. So each of my children will have their own set of 15 eggs in their Easter baskets ready to use during conference.

I washed my eggs with soapy water, dried them and then filled them with snacks my kids can enjoy as they listen to the speaker. The snacks I chose are blueberries, cutie orange sections, peanuts, popcorn, dried apples, chocolate chips, pretzels, goldfish crackers, mini marshmallows, raisins, dried cranberries, bunny crackers and cereal. If you want a non food option you might choose to put a different color crayon in each egg for your child to use to draw with during conference.

Enjoy conference weekend with your little ones!

Credit: Apostle Egg Hunt Idea inspired by The Home Teacher.org’s General Conference Easter Eggs: http://thehometeacher.org/2012/04/general-conference-easter-eggs.html

Did you see our free egg matching printable last week in your email? It is great to work on visual discrimination, recognition of colors and  pattern recognition. 

Tomorrow in your email you will be getting a free scripture egg hunt printable and some ideas for a Christ centered FHE. 

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